1. Field
A refrigerator and a method for controlling the same are disclosed herein.
2. Background
Generally, a refrigerator has a plurality of storage chambers for accommodating and keeping food frozen or refrigerated, and one surface of each storage chamber is opened to receive or take out the food. The plurality of storage chambers include a freezing chamber for keeping the food frozen and a refrigerating chamber for keeping the food refrigerated.
In the refrigerator, a refrigeration system in which a refrigerant is circulated is driven. The refrigeration system includes a compressor, a condenser, an expander and an evaporator. A refrigerant gas generated by the evaporator may be supplied to the freezing chamber or the refrigerating chamber.
The refrigerator is an always-operated product which is continuously operated when a power cord thereof is connected with a power source. Therefore, the refrigerator may be an electric appliance having a relatively large power consumption among various electric products. Recently, a technique which may estimate or measure a power amount consumed by the refrigerator has been proposed to efficiently perform a power management of the refrigerator.
The applicant has proposed the technique for estimating the power amount of an electric product which has been applied for a patent.
1. Application Number (Filing date): KR 2010-0058918 (Jun. 22, 2010)
2. Title of the disclosure: Network system
In such an application, a power consumption of an energy-consuming unit included in an electric product may be just estimated using an information value stored in a memory, and there is a limitation in performing an operation which substantially reduces a power consumption, while monitoring an operation state of the electric product.